30 Days of Night: Bloodsucker Tales (Dead Billy Dead)

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With vampires going back towards there former glory and away from the Twilight school of thought and Morbius getting his own movie, I wanted to dive deeper into the 30 Days of Night series, starting with this side story away from the original trilogy ( 30 days of night30 Days of Night: Dark Days , and 30 Days of Night: Return to Barrow )

Billy is a asshole, a low life and a burden to the people he loved. One night he gets into a brawl with a psycho who bites him and the madness begins. Billy seemingly can’t die as he is mistakenly shot by a cop but the new powers developing seem connected to vampires. Desperate, he seeks help from his ex girlfriend while fleeing the cops and seeking help from a power hungry Dr Saxton, who has sick plans for Billy. Is there redemption for the creep after becoming a monster?

While nothing spectacular or groundbreaking, this is a solid vampire story. While reading it, I felt more than tad of influence from the Morbius comics only full R rated. Billy isn’t a bad character to follow but I have to admit Saxton was a more interesting villain and a pretty sick one at that. The art is pretty common to the series, blurry and bloody, so however you felt about the others is pretty much how you’ll feel about this. In the end it’s a pretty solid book but not really special. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Why I fell out of favor as a Marvel fan.

snowflake_safespace  While Marvel reigns supreme at the box office, may have had it with there latest comic debacle in there attempt to prove how inclusive they are. Enter Snowflake and Safespace, two of Marvel’s latest new heroes as part of a new team of teen heroes and while none of the other heroes sound much better, these two are supposed to be non-binary twins. While I believe everyone deserves a hero and their are should be more varied, original heroes to break the barriers, I couldn’t take any of this seriously. The names alone are mockeries of the people they are trying to represent. I finally felt my last bubble of hope in Marvel comics deflate after the past few years. Before I begin, I just want to say there maybe a hot button topic or two here and while I applaud Marvel’s push for inclusion, I can’t say I approve how they go about it which is part of the few reasons they fell out of my favor.

Years ago, around the time Marvel’s popularity was skyrocketing because of the first phase of the MCU, they started transplanting many of there iconic characters like making Falcon the new Captain America, making Jane Foster Lady Thor, or Kamela Khan becoming the new Ms. Marvel after Carol Danvers assumed the persona of Captain Marvell. While a lot of these changes didn’t bother me, things like 2 factions of X men existing in the same universe and Kitty Pryde, Agent Venom, and the Thing joining Guardians of the Galaxy was a bit hard to swallow; Kitty becoming Starlord makes no sense to me. Some complained about the change of beloved characters but for the most part I was was able to see it making sense.

Around the same time, reading multiple series, I couldn’t help getting irked at the lack of solo stories, meaning there was a overabundance of Events going on. I recall them dropping one after another and it becoming too much of a hassle to follow. Something I give DC, there recent comics still include a huge catalog of solo stories for it’s characters. What also didn’t help was how Marvel’s multiverses ended up colliding in two many versions of the same character existing on the same plane; good luck being a casual and trying to talk about Spider-man and not knowing which Spidey you are following. now I know what you may be thinking, ‘ Torsten, why not wait til you can get the graphic novel and read it all at once’. Well, that would be a good point if not for the price tags. Since the MCU took off, the size of most solo Marvel graphic novels have shrunk as the prizes rise, especially for the Event books which declined in quality. Civil War II was not well received; Secret Empire angered many at it’s plot twist of Captain America being a Hydra agent all along. By the time Snowflake and Safespace came into play, my enthusiasm was far from healthy and I just shook my head, remembering the once amazing work from Marvel, which inspired myself as well as countless others. Someday I hope to call myself a current Marvel fan and call myself a true believer once more, but for now the present is bleak as the $ overrides creative wealth. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

JLA Dark: Apokolips War trailer

I was kinda curious what the next big DC animated flick would be and I have to admit, the idea of a R rated Darkseid movie is pretty sweet. The cast of characters we’ve seen is pretty impressive and the voices fit pretty well. While I’m not to familiar with the source material, it looks like a promising film. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

Ultimate X-men/ Ultimate Fantastic 4

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Ultimate Fantastic 4: Inhuman (vol.4)

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After the events of Ultimate Fantastic 4: N- Zone , the Fantastic 4 are out in the open and unveiled to the public after thwarting Annihilus and they are in trouble. Sent back to the the think tank at the Baxter building by there handlers, they discover a disgruntled genius calling herself the Thinker is out to prove herself the superior mind, any way possible. After dealing with her, Sue and Johnny’s distant mother comes into there lives to uncover Namor, while Johnny meets a cute girl that proves to be not so human, introducing Namor the Submariner and the Inhumans in the Marvel Ultimate universe.

What I like about this particular book is you get 3 mini stories for the price of one. The first story is a good epilogue to the last book and it is cool seeing the Four face there own home as a enemy. While I don’t like Namor’s Ultimate backstory, I can’t lie the fight between him and Torch is pretty cool and the story is a nice look into Sue Storm’s character. As a fan of the Inhumans, I don’t like the designs in Ultimate but Karnak vs Invisible Woman was one of my favorite Ultimate moments. While the stakes aren’t overly high in the book, it’s nice to get some bite sized chunks with Marvel’s first family and it’s not a bad book to pick up if you read the others. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

The Thanos Imperative

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Awhile back I made a list of 5 Marvel stories that hooked me and this book was in there. With the Infinity Saga of the MCU at a close, Thanos was the greatest threat we’ve seen our heroes come to our heroes, but if the mad Titan was our only hope?

Death, while frightening and painful, is an essential part of life but in the Cancer-verse, awaken by Adam Magnus and his followers death doesn’t exist and is running out of room. An entire universe united under a dark version of Marvell is ready to breach our universe. The cosmos greatest heroes unite to face the mass invasion lead by Nova, Quasar, Medusa, and Gladiator but even with the aid of the Silver Surfer and his master Galactus it seems. Of all people, hope rests with the misfit Guardians of the Galaxy who have a once dead Thanos in containment; Thanos is the personification of Death the Cancer-verse needs but the Titan is unstable and Drax is driven mad with the urge to slay him. Can Lord Marvell and a whole universe be stopped and at what cost?

So, first things first, my explanation of the story is the gist but honestly it’s easier to follow than most of the book. This book goes through a shit load of exposition and because of the huge amount of stuff going on, it becomes hard to follow at times and a lot of it feels more complex than it needs to. On top of that, I do not  recommend this to newer readers because of the insane roster of characters including: Nova, Quasar, Gladiator, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Silver Surfer, The Inhumans, Beta Rey Bill, Ronan the Accuser, Adam Magnus, Galactus, the original Captain Mar-vell, and of course Thanos, and no, movie knowledge won’t help you much. While those are huge drawbacks, the artwork and scope of the action is beautiful and epic. Watching Surfer and Galactus go into battle amongst all these cosmic heroes was truly badass.  The story takes some chances and some characters do die and the ending did a reasonable impact on Marvel as a whole. It is a real cool story with fantastic artwork but it’s more complex than it has to be. May the gamin g gods bring you glory.

The Flash: Move Forward (new 52 vol.1)

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I know a long time ago, during the beginning days of the blog I did a post about 5 great stories from DC new 52 and mentioned the third volume of this series. Despite only seeing Flash, season 1 I always wanted to dive deeper into the Scarlet Speedster and I wanted a decent place to start.

Barry Allan better known as the fastest man alive, The Flash, can’t even have a normal date night it seems when a symposium him and his girl are visiting are attacked by a group of mercenaries out to steal the tech on display. Flash manages to stop one of the masked soldiers, discovering one of his best friends from college dead and a new mystery afoot as Barry discovers his friend is in fact alive and has new regenerative capabilities and has accidentally spawned a clone gang calling itself Mob Rule as it blacks out Central City, unleashing a vengeful, newly empowered Captain Cold to escape prison and hunt for Flash who discovers the true depth of his power and the dangers of the Speed Force when using too much power can destroy time itself…

I must admit you definitely get your money’s worth with this book unlike some graphic novels that are mostly fluff. Mob Rule is a interesting villain to follow but Captain Cold vs Flash was a badass fight and Cold with ice powers is epic as hell. I feel Flash’s plight and you are invested in his story but with everything going on as well as the speed of Barry’s thoughts do make it hard to follow in the middle. In the end, while a good Flash story, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it as a intro to the character but still well worth a read. May the gaming gods bring you glory.